The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for transporting rod-shaped articles, especially rod-shaped articles which constitute or form part of smokers' products. Such articles include, filter rod sections as well as plain or filter cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos or cheroots.
It is often necessary to change the orientation or grouping of rod-shaped articles, such as filter rod sections, on their way from a making machine to a processing machine or from a preceding to a next-following processing machine. For example, a conventional filter rod making machine turns out a continuous filter rod, e.g., a filter rod wherein a filler of fibrous filter material is confined in a tubular envelope consisting of cigarette paper, imitation cork or the like. The rod is severed at regular intervals to yield a file of filter rod sections of desired length (e.g., six or eight times unit length), and such sections are thereupon transported to the magazine of a filter tipping machine wherein the filter rod sections are converted into filter plugs of unit length or double unit length and are assembled with plain cigarettes to form therewith filter cigarettes of unit length or double unit length. During transport from the filter rod making to the filter tipping machine, the filter rod sections are normally caused to change the direction of their movement from axial or lengthwise movement to transverse or sidewise movement.
Numerous apparatus are known and used to change the orientation and grouping of cigarettes, filter rod sections or analogous rod-shaped articles. For example, a cigarette maker is normally equipped with an accelerating cam which is located downstream of a so-called cutoff serving to subdivide a continuous cigarette rod into a file of discrete plain cigarettes of unit length. The cam has one or more lobes which propel successive plain cigarettes of the file into the axially parallel peripheral flutes of a rotary drum-shaped row forming conveyor so that the file is converted into one or more rows wherein the cigarettes move sideways. Such cigarettes are ready for delivery to a filter tipping machine, i.e., for assembly with filter plugs and uniting bands to form filter cigarettes of unit length or multiple unit length. The situation is analogous when a continuous filter rod is subdivided into a single fine or filter rod sections of desired length and the file is thereupon converted into one or more rows wherein the sections move sideways. It is also known to propel filter rod sections through pneumatic conveyor systems from the maker or makers to one or more remote reservoir systems or processing machines. The just outlined conventional apparatus operate quite satisfactorily when a single file of cigarettes, filter rod sections or analogous rod-shaped articles is to be converted into one or more rows or other formations. However, such conventional apparatus are incapable of handling large or extremely large quantities of rod-shaped articles, for example, all of the articles which are supplied or can be supplied by a filter rod making machine having several extruders each of which forms and discharges a discrete filter rod which is subdivided into filter rod sections of desired length. All heretofore known apparatus are specifically designed for the treatment or processing of a single file or row of rod-shaped articles and their multiplication (e.g., eightfold multiplication, in order to be capable of processing the output of a machine which turns out a substantial number of continuous filter rods or the like) would entail a disproportionate increase in the bulk, cost and complexity of such apparatus.